Tasmania, the hidden jewel of Australia 2010/08/01-15 Day2

It’s always nice waking up to the gentle warm sunlight, the birds chipping, and find that you are surrounded by mother nature!!!!


The peaceful morning ….isn’t it amazing?? The morning sun rays cutting through the trees, love it!!!! This was where we parked our car to get into Mt.Field national park for our early morning walk.


Kinda freezing cold!!!



One of favourite macro shot of morning dew in crystal ice :)
 

Tasmania, the hidden jewel of Australia 2010/08/01-15 Day1

 
The name of Tasmania somehow is not very popular among Asians i think, more people would think of New Zealand, or most people would know Sydney, melbourne, perth rather than Tasmania. However, Tasmania is a well known destination for those who knows how to find it, love relaxing, love adventure,  basically the hidden jewel of Australia.


This state have the biggest coverage in terms of designated national parks, almost half of the island is protected now. What’s more impressive is that one of

Tasmania's World Heritage sites cover an area of 1.38 million hectares - about 20% of the Island.
It includes the Southwest National Park, the Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park,  the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, the Walls of Jerusalem National Park, the Hartz Mountain National Park, Mole Creek Karst National Park, the eastern end of Macquarie Harbour on the west coast and the Central Plateau Conservation Area.

That 20% of island, its many beaches, unique landscapes and a few more world heritage sites is what makes Tasmania a must visit to Australia and the hidden jewel of Australia.

In early Aug i have a chance to step foot on Tasmania, which kinda turned out to be one of my best and memorable trip in Australia. The chance came when Alex will be in Tassie for 1 month to play bridge for SA. The best thing was he’s gonna bring his car over and that means extra flexibility in turn of plans. Jono and I seize the chance to go over and meet Alex and do some serious hiking.

Some people would say: if you can’t get to New Zealand, go Tasmania. Some people would argue NZ is better while some reckon Tassie is better, lol.

It’s a trip that require some planning in advance. Shit things happened before the trip, like Tiger airline cancelled off all the flight between Hobart and Adelaide, so my return flight was cancel but luckily we managed to sus thing out which turn out to be a unique one too in the end.

This trip was the week right after my departmental seminar, and kinda work out as a 2 week escaping trip for me.

Almond blossom during end of winter 2010

There’s this big almond tree that blossomed in the year 2010 which i didn’t realized in 2009, but glad i saw it because the whole tree was FULL of almond tree flowers!!! And you wanted to capture it when most of the flowers are still on it, otherwise the wind and rain can damage them :)

Here’s some of my pick :)

Suraya’s new home welcoming 2010.07.24!!!!

What can i can say…
A potluck with amazing apartment, amazing food, and most importantly amazing people!!!!


I purposely went to Suraya’s aprt earlier so that i can see and learn from Suraya how to make the delicious beef rendang!!!!

All this while, i have been telling Suraya how much i missed UM 12th college’s some sort of malay cooking chicken/beef, but i just didn’t know what it’s called until i saw what Suaraya made!!! So the malay dish i missed is rendang!!!! LOL

Something i love about her new aprt is the rooftop!!!! Yes, u can access the roof top!!!!

Great major mitchell plateau hike 2010.07.08-11

Woke up to a refreshing morning at Borough’s campsite in the Grampians after a long night of driving (reached at ~1-2am)!!! Had breakfast and enjoyed the surroundings, we had a bit of a hard time deciding the route we wanted to use – clockwise or anti-clockwise because of the weather. Luckily in the end we agreed on doing it clockwise which is what i pretty much wanted, haha because that way we get to be on the Mt.William summit (the highest in the Grampians) in a good weather, where as the followings days were predicted to be raining!!!!

 
Some of old remaining (pic on right).

 
The stream that ran behind the campsite which is good for refilling water (left pic).


Click for enlarge size!!!


We had to head down to Horsham because some people need to buy rain jacket and some food. Couldn’t do the trip without the proper gears because the weather on top of the plateau is very unpredictable and wind can be so strong that it can pose risk to anyone.


Finally we started off our ascent through this little path up to the Mt.Williams car park. So the plan was to do a grand loop trail which roughly involved 3 days of hike, up to Mt.Williams, than to the Major Mitchell Plateau, camp then continue hike down, camp , and then another hike  which is more or less flatter.